Obama's climate legacy will start when Shell’s Arctic drilling stops

Since Shell's Kulluk rig ran aground off Alaska, the US Department of Interior and the US Coast Guard have both launched independent investigations to find out what went wrong with the company's drilling operations in the far north.

These urgent investigations will conclude in just 30 days and could decide that Shell cannot be trusted to drill in the Arctic. Meanwhile President Obama spoke out last week more strongly than ever before about the need for climate solutions "for the sake of our children and our future."

Despite the investigations, Shell recently announced it will be towing its battered Arctic rigs across the Pacific to Asia for urgent repairs. The company wants to get all its vessels ready for another attempt to drill for oil this summer. This is why we urgently need to ensure President Obama acts to stop them.

Obama knows that public opinion is on our side - a majority of Americans consider climate change a serious problem. The way he deals with Shell’s reckless Arctic behavior will set the tone for the incoming Secretary of the Interior - the person who will oversee the results of the Shell investigation, and deal with the worst case scenario of an oil spill in Arctic waters.

Shell has repeatedly shown it is incapable of operating in the remote waters of the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas, whilst drilling for more of the oil that is causing the sea ice to disappear before our eyes is a recipe for a climate disaster.

Hundreds of thousands of you have taken action to ask US President Obama to call for a time out on Arctic oil drilling, but clearly we need even more people to get his attention.

It's quite a dichotomy between economically serving humans on the one hand and on another hand respecting the environments with which we've evolved these countless years. I'm sure that many USAmericans are quite conflicted over this. as many elsewheres are also. It can appear even more complicated when we consider other qualities of economic interpretations.

A community greater than human is obvious to eyes and minds opened to look; this fosters hope for me although it is obvious also that many eyes and minds are not opened so.

I've sent the web letter on to President Obama asking that he suspend arctic drilling permits, but wanted also say why I did so.